October 9, 2018 — As amazing as the 2018 New England scallop harvest has been, the 2019 season could be just as great.
That’s what the staff at the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) is saying following multiple dredge and high-resolution drop camera surveys taken to evaluate scallop biomass and help inform coming recommendations to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“From a biological perspective – the outlook is good for next year,” Jonathan Peros, the NEFMC’s lead fishery analyst for Atlantic sea scallops, told Undercurrent News in an email sent Friday. “The fishery could achieve a harvest similar to 2018 levels in the coming year.”
Speaking of the 2018 scallop season, it’s been one for the books. Based on the estimate of nearly 39 million pounds of scallops landed as of Sept. 13, the NEFMC staff has conservatively projected the fishery will finish the year with 56m pounds, Peros told the council at a meeting late last month. And counting the carry over and scallops harvested for research and observer purposes, the volume of landings could climb to 60m, Peros told Undercurrent.
That would be an improvement of nearly 13% over the 53.4m lbs landed in 2017.
Despite the abundance of scallops, the price at the Buyers and Sellers Exchange, the seafood auction in New Bedford, Massachusetts, appears to have ratcheted way up at the end of the year.